Browsing: Duncan McLeod

SA must think bigger

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The arrival, finally, of relatively affordable, uncapped broadband products shows the country is making some progress in telecommunications. However, if we want to be truly competitive as a nation, we need to be thinking much bigger

A wasted decade in SA broadband

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A full-blown price war has erupted in fixed-line broadband in SA. Internet service providers are racing to outdo each other to provide unmetered bandwidth cheaper. This is great for consumers and the economy, but it should have happened 10 years ago.

ZA Tech Show: Episode 104

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Your hosts this week are Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle. And what a week it was on the technology news front in SA, what with MWeb introducing SA’s first (relatively) affordable uncapped broadband packages and MultiChoice rival On Digital Media taking the wraps off TopTV

Why operators are learning to share

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First came the news that Cell C is planning to sell its national network of base stations to a third-party tower operator. Now MTN SA, looking to cut costs, may begin selling space on its towers to competitors. Why, suddenly, is infrastructure sharing all the rage?

Telecoms prices take a tumble

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SA consumers, used to high prices for telecommunications, must be rubbing their hands in glee. The cost of broadband and voice telephony has begun falling, in some cases dramatically, as competition finally begins to take effect

TV’s big overhaul

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Television in SA is on the verge of its biggest changes since its introduction in 1976. Two new pay-TV operators will finally launch soon to take on DStv, and the move to digital terrestrial television will change the competitive dynamics of the industry forever.

A race for smarties

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Operating systems were all the talk last week at Mobile World Congress, the cellphone industry’s annual confab in Barcelona. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nokia and others are engaged in a battle over whose software will run the next generation of smartphones

Locked into Google

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Privacy advocates voiced concerns this weekend about Buzz, Google’s new social networking service. Buzz reportedly exposed users’ contacts to others, without consent. That raises a question: how easy would it be to extricate oneself from Google?

A way to fix Sentech

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Sentech is in trouble. Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda last week outlined the damning findings of a task team appointed to probe ongoing troubles at the state-owned broadcasting company. Here’s one way to fix it.